1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a vehicle surroundings monitoring apparatus for recognizing traveling circumstances in front of an own vehicle by stereoscopic cameras, monocular cameras, millimeter wave radars, and the like and for making an accurate judgment of evacuation of a preceding vehicle from the lane and, more particularly to a traveling control system incorporating such a vehicle surroundings monitoring apparatus.
2. Discussion of Related Arts
In recent years, such a traveling control system as detecting traveling circumstances in front of an own vehicle by a camera and the like mounted on a vehicle, estimating traveling paths of the own vehicle from the traveling circumstances data, detecting a preceding vehicle traveling ahead of the own vehicle and making a follow-up control of the preceding vehicle or an intervehicle distance control between the own vehicle and the preceding vehicle, has been put into practical use.
For example, Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. Toku-Kai-Hei 9-91598 discloses a traveling control system in which a traveling path of an own vehicle is estimated from traveling conditions such as yaw rate and other data and a nearest obstacle on the traveling path is detected as a preceding vehicle to be monitored. Further, in the traveling control system, when the preceding vehicle goes out of the traveling path of the own vehicle, the monitoring of the preceding vehicle is released.
In the traveling control system, the technology of recognizing a preceding vehicle is very important. The preceding vehicle sometimes travels in such a manner as trying to avoid an obstacle, sometimes changes the lane, and sometimes goes out of the lane and other vehicle enters the lane in place of the preceding vehicle. If the traveling control system fails to correctly catch the behavior of the preceding vehicle, the traveling control becomes awkward and rather inconvenient for a vehicle driver.